Since the Civil War, exactly one ticket containing two sitting senators has won: Kennedy & Johnson. That ticket was created when Kennedy sought to unify his party by selecting as VP a strong primary rival whose strength was where Kennedy was weak. This is also a strategy Ronald Reagan used in his first open election--selecting as VP a strong primary opponent who was strong where he was not.

Barack Obama feels he has the luxury of ignoring this stategy, even though Obama's primary race was much more closely run than Kennedy's or Reagan's. Also, along the primary trail, unlike Kennedy or Reagan, Obama alienated voters in two important swing states--Michigan and Florida, by telling those voters, their votes shouldn't count. Obama's passed-over strongest primary rival could have helped in those states. It is hard to see how Biden, a weak primary opponent who was effectively a no-show in those states, will offer a special appeal to Michigan and Florida voters..

The only other two-senator ticket since the Civil War--Kerry & Edwards, did not win.

Obama, a sitting federal senator, believes he can win on the campaign theme "change," exploiting the anti-Washington sentiment that has resulted in no federal senator winning the presidency since Kennedy (and none other in the 20th Century except Harding).

Since Kennedy's election, scores of sitting senators have campaigned for the presidency. Most were blocked in the primaries but four did manage to capture the nomination, Goldwater, McGovern, Dole and Kerry. They all lost.

In this election cycle, it is all but certain that a sitting federal senator will win the presidency: both major parties have nominated senators. Obama, however, swims hardest against the stream of generic discontent with Washington because his pitch is most dependent on that discontent--it is "experience" versus "change" in 2008. Perhaps, the central question of this campaign is how credible will the public find a sitting senator's claim he represents "change?"

When McCain starts highlighting Obama's senatorial record his credentials as an agent for change will suffer. First, simply because Obama is a senator--a member of the "Most Exclusive Private Club In The World." He is not John the Baptist in the wilderness.

Also, specifics of Obama's senatorial service will hurt his credibility as an agent of change too.For instance, Obama was a Democratic senator when both Roberts and Alito were placed on the Supreme Court. His party had the senatorial votes to block those nominations (it only takes only 40 votes to keep a filibuster alive under the antiquated rules of the senate). Yet, it did not block those appointments and Obama failed to show leadership in that cause. A weak president was able to force ideological judges onto the Supreme Court over the mouthed objections of a supine Democratic senators. It was finger-in-the-wind politics as usual.

Obama's nearly $400 million in campaign donations, approximately half from the old guard political establishment, also denies his credibility as an agent for change. The old guard doesn't invest in change. It's buying access to government through Obama.

Looking at the history of the vice presidential pick, we find that three sitting senators have won open elections as vice president since Johnson in 1960: Mondale, Quayle and Gore. All ran with presidential candidates who'd never served in the senate--two of whom were genuine Washington outsiders, never having held office in Washinton: governors Carter and Clinton.

In the same period sitting senators Lodge, Muskie, Dole, Bentsen, Lieberman and Edwards were on tickets that lost: a winning count of only 3 of 12. Of the losers, all ran with a Washington insider except one.

It will undoubtedly be harder for Obama to maintain his credibility as an agent of change with a long-time Washington insider as chosen ticket mate. In fact, Biden is the 20th longest serving senator in American history. There have been 1,897 federal senators in American history: 1,877 whose tenures were shorter than Biden's.

Biden's 35 years in the senate is longer than the whole lives of many of the young voters Obama depends on to "energize" the Democratic base, even while ignoring an opportunity to assuage Clinton's older, less affluent supporters by picking her as the VP candidate.

Kennedy did not personally like Johnson, Reagan did not personally like George H.W. Bush,. but they picked them for political reasons and won. If Obama looses in November, the reasoning and emotions that went into his vice presidential selection will be mulled-over by historians for a long time.

This weekend's decision, may be the decision that most affect November's outcome.

I see Biden as making the Obama ticket Change plus experience. Biden's net worth is miniscule next to McCain (or Obama). Biden has a compelling personal story and has a history of extremely useful legislation.....100,000 cops on the street vs McCain/Feingold. See what people think of that comparison.

Your evaluation of the history of races fails to take into consideration McCain's age, Obama's race and the current anti-Bush trend.

When did we ever have the minority party with 27 representatives and 5 congressmen bailing out?

There are too many fairly interesting dynamics that make this different from previous elections.

Interesting and salient analysis. The "experience" versus "change" dynamic of this election is exactly where Obama dropped the ball with his VP pick: Biden represents "experience," i.e the status quo to the max, and completely undermines Obama's message of "change."

My only quibble with your analysis is where you state that "...Obama alienated voters in two important swing states--Michigan and Florida, by telling those voters, their votes shouldn't count." He did no such thing. Obama abided by the rules of the DNC, which everyone understood and to which everyone assented, including Hillary, prior to the outset of the primaries.

For the purpose of full disclosure, I don't support either Obama or Hillary.

You've got your history of the disenfranchisements wrong: Primary dates have been, are and always will be set by state legislatures. Legislature's alone have the legal power to set primaries that cost tens of millions, involve thousands of paid volunteers and are run under extensive state and federal laws.

The parties claimed no role in the process until recent election cycles when they started to care that voters in Iowa and N.H. matter most--and this only in reaction to other states' legislatures discussing changing their dates to matter as much as voters in the party preferred states. In Florida, no primary vote has mattered since 1976. Fifty year olds in Florida have never cast a primary vote that wasn't meaningless.

Florida voters and Florida's legislature, Michigan's voters and Michigan's legislature were not consulted, nor did they agree, to let Iowa and N.H. matter more. Not ever! Any "agreement" would have to involve the entity with the exclusive legal power to set the dates and the people to whom that entity is accountable. Proof there was no such agreement is what the state legislatures did.

Both parties--loving the special importance of Iowa and NH voters and having no real control over dates, decided to bully the states considering changing their primary dates by threatening half disenfranchisement for millions of voters--whole states full of voters. Florida still changed its date to make the point that party officials cannot dictate when, how or where Americans vote and that Floridians overwhelmingly wanted to matter for a change.

The RNC stood pat, but the DNC doubled its bets to full disenfranchisement in an attempt to bully Michigan into not fallowing Florida. That didn't work either.

What's Obama do? 1) He endorsed the DNC's decision to half disenfranchise, 2) he endorsed the DNC's decision to fully disenfranchise 3) he "took the pledge" demanded by Democratic officials in Iowa and N.H. to shun Fl. and Mich. primary voters (though he was allowed to collect money in those states--money to to be spent campaigning in Iowa and NH), 4) he took the position that Florida primary votes could not be counted because it was "unfair" to count votes unless he'd campaigned for them--Clinton hadn't campaigned either and they were--after all, American votes, but fairness was measured by how it affected his personal chances, 5) he took the position that the votes could be "allowed" if he got to say how they had been cast by the voters--he called it "an acceptable formula," 6) once the votes could not affect the outcome--in other words, once the voters in those states were back where they started--not mattering, he said their meaningless votes could count.

He's in a hole in those states because of what he's done.

Yes, picking a primary rival is huge winning strategy! That's how Ford won in 1976 by picking Dole. Oh wait, he lost that one. How about when George W. Bush picked Cheny in 2000? No, Cheney was part of Bush's campaign from day one. Well, then there was Clinton picking Gore in 1992. No, Gore didn't even run in 1992.

Of course, your whole premise that picking Biden is mistake because you ignore that Biden WAS a primary rival of Obama's, just not the one you were hoping for.

Yes, senators rarely win the presidency. However, this year, we have both parties having nominated a sitting US senator, which means this year, a senator WILL win. Of course, if SENATOR Hillary Clinton had won the nomination and had then picked Biden or anyone other than Obama, you would be posting the exact same argument about primary rivals and the long odds that senators face, right?

Yeah, right.

Issywise:

You've got your history of the disenfranchisements wrong: Primary dates have been, are and always will be set by state legislatures. Legislature's alone have the legal power to set primaries that cost tens of millions, involve thousands of paid volunteers and are run under extensive state and federal laws.

The parties claimed no role in the process until recent election cycles when they started to care that voters in Iowa and N.H. matter most--and this only in reaction to other states' legislatures discussing changing their dates to matter as much as voters in the party preferred states. In Florida, no primary vote has mattered since 1976. Fifty year olds in Florida have never cast a primary vote that wasn't meaningless.

Florida voters and Florida's legislature, Michigan's voters and Michigan's legislature were not consulted, nor did they agree, to let Iowa and N.H. matter more. Not ever! Any "agreement" would have to involve the entity with the exclusive legal power to set the dates and the people to whom that entity is accountable. Proof there was no such agreement is what the state legislatures did.

Both parties--loving the special importance of Iowa and NH voters and having no real control over dates, decided to bully the states considering changing their primary dates by threatening half disenfranchisement for millions of voters--whole states full of voters. Florida still changed its date to make the point that party officials cannot dictate when, how or where Americans vote and that Floridians overwhelmingly wanted to matter for a change.

The RNC stood pat, but the DNC doubled its bets to full disenfranchisement in an attempt to bully Michigan into not fallowing Florida. That didn't work either.

What's Obama do? 1) He endorsed the DNC's decision to half disenfranchise, 2) he endorsed the DNC's decision to fully disenfranchise 3) he "took the pledge" demanded by Democratic officials in Iowa and N.H. to shun Fl. and Mich. primary voters (though he was allowed to collect money in those states--money to to be spent campaigning in Iowa and NH), 4) he took the position that Florida primary votes could not be counted because it was "unfair" to count votes unless he'd campaigned for them--Clinton hadn't campaigned either and they were--after all, American votes, but fairness was measured by how it affected his personal chances, 5) he took the position that the votes could be "allowed" if he got to say how they had been cast by the voters--he called it "an acceptable formula," 6) once the votes could not affect the outcome--in other words, once the voters in those states were back where they started--not mattering, he said their meaningless votes could count.

He's in a hole in those states because of what he's done.

That's all well and good. The point is, however, that Obama didn't "disenfranchise" MI and FL voters. If those voters have a problem with being "disenfranchised," they need to take it up with the DNC, not Obama.

rookie's status by taking the 'safe' rather than 'difficult' option with his bland VP pick.

What was he thinking, counter the old White guy insider with another old White guy insider? All this has resulted in is pissing off his youthful crowd of supporters who worship change for the exclusive sake of change itself and it has convinced his critics inside the Democratic Party itself that Obama is actually too timid to do what it takes to effect any meaningful change.

Any fool knows that Hillary alone and that Hillary and Bill together are dangerous, but for all of that the smart move would have been to ask Hillary to be on the VP ticket. This would have shown genuine desire for party unity -- something that Obama MUST accomplish -- and it would have proved that he's fearless enough to embrace the equivalent of a pair of political vipers in order to advance his stated goals.

But no, he went with the safe, old, white guy in order to sleep easy at night, and that is probably going to cost him the election. This is because while those 18 to 20 million unhappy Clinton supporters would have supported Obama with Hillary as their VP they will not support Obama simply because Hillary and Bill, as current party OUTSIDERS, beg them to do so during the convention.

With the simple and 'safe' pick of Biden as VP, Obama has probably lost the bid for the White House.

Please. Those "18 to 20 million unhappy Clinton supporters" could barely fill a conference room now. They certainly can't even raise enough money to retire her campaign debt.

Hillary Clinton is never going to be president. The fact that few hundred at most of her diehard worshipers can't get over that fact isn't going to swing this election.

while charming in its naivety, does not make 'it' so.

Those 18 to 20 million unhappy Hillary supporters are real and are of a real concern to political experts of both parties. Psssst . . . give your favorite propaganda enabling blogs a rest and take a gander at the mainstream newsmedia talking heads [ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox]. It is collectively a massive issue with them and it should be one with you 'heads in the clouds' Obama supporters; it's certainly a nail biting issue with Obama's campaign staff.

one percent of the nomination process vote.

He was never a serious candidate and therefore never a serious rival to Obama. He's a paper tiger at best, and your rebuttal is, as usual, full of holes and hot hot air escaping.

Then, I guess Alfried Krupp shouldn't have been tried as a war criminal? It was the Nazi policy, not his, to enslave peoples and make them work in the Reich's privately owned factories. Krupp only went along with, endorsed it, exploited it and profited from the policy. So Krupp's war crimes conviction was unjust?

Obama should not be judged for what the DNC did, only for what he did: going along with it, endorsing it, exploiting it and profiting from it.

Doesn't change the fact that they could barely fill a conference room when the PUMAs tried to hold a meeting.

But whatever helps you sleep at night.

Most other people call "facts". I know, they're pesky things.

You have made good counter arguments, but for God's sake what makes you think I'm a Hillary supporter? You don't need to demonize everybody you disagree with. You should not go around assuming things about people just because it makes it easier for you to dismiss their arguments. You listed some good reasons for dismissing my argument. Why blunt your sharp edge by name calling?

I apologize if you're not one. I've just seen so many of the same arguments given by Hillary supporters that I made an assumption. If that was inaccurate, again, I apologize.